With everything that has come to pass since then, and especially...

With everything that has come to pass since then, and especially seeing similar developments with BUB later on, I've come to believe that Peter Nathan in particular did probably mislead everyone about the outlook in his area of responsibility (Asia Pacific region).

PN has since been cosying up to the same corporate daigou (Andy Zhang) even after the latter went on to wreck BUB in eerily similar circumstances. It suggests to me that they had mutually beneficial "understanding" which underpinned the failed strategy A2 had of "incentivising" daigou throughout all the downgrades.

I wouldn't be surprised if PN kept much of old management and board in the dark as well. I am sure that they genuinely did need a better inventory tracking system, and it's much better that they have one in place now. Transparency overall is better. Not least of all because I suspect he knew inventory wasn't moving but since it wasn't visible, there was plausible deniability.

To his credit Bortolussi is the one who came in and put an end to that strategy of incentivising daigou, wrote off the old stock, and ultimately showed PN where the door was.